Upon seeing Alaric and the others arrive, Lothar seemed to want to greet him, but was soon interrupted by more orcs.
Helpless, the group could only respond to the annoying intruders with their weapons.
With his… helpers—no, companions—present, Alaric abandoned the idea of personally clearing out the orcs.
Just like during his earlier cooperation with Lothar, he once again cast buffing spells to empower his allies, letting them take care of the battle.
As the familiar all-encompassing buffs enveloped him, Lothar felt the same overwhelming strength he had once experienced in Karazhan.
He looked down at his sword, which now shimmered with radiant light, and let out a cold smirk at the orcs before him.
Facing their savage hammer strikes, he no longer relied on technique. Instead, he swung his sword with brute force, meeting them head-on.
Before the orc's hammer could even touch him, the now enhanced human warrior cleaved the enemy in two.
Elsewhere, Vereesa found that her eyesight, hand speed, and reflexes had all increased severalfold.
In an instant, her movements blurred into afterimages as she loosed arrow after arrow. Like a storm, the bolts pierced the throats of five or six orcs in the blink of an eye.
Here, the benefit of the Starfury bow's ability to conjure arcane arrows became fully apparent.
With her now-supernatural speed, Vereesa didn't even need to worry about running out of arrows. She went all out, instantly achieving double-digit kills.
Onyxia, too, once again felt the immense power of her master.
Even as a formidable sorceress herself, the buffs Alaric bestowed upon her made her mind crystal clear and significantly hastened her arcane concentration.
Flames roared across the battlefield, and any orc daring to approach her direction ended up as nothing more than a smoldering pile of charcoal.
Yet even so, a few orcs managed to slip through the chaos. Spotting Alaric in his robe and not attacking, they instinctively marked him as the weak point of the group and charged at him amidst the confusion.
But before they could reach Alaric, a shadow flitted behind them in the darkness. The King-Slayer silently slit their throats, and they collapsed without ever seeing their killer.
That, unmistakably, was Garona's handiwork.
Together, the group quickly cleared a zone of orcs, creating a vacuum that stood out sharply on the battlefield. Soon, various cavalry units—now scattered and fighting separately after their initial charges—noticed their position and instinctively began converging on them.
Meanwhile, in the distant orc camp, more and more orcs were gathering at the camp's entrance. Thousands of them surged outward.
Alaric immediately realized that if they stayed where they were, they would soon be overwhelmed.
"Commander!" he shouted to Lothar. "Fighting separately like this won't work. We need to fall back to our main force!"
Lothar nodded. "You're the mage—clear us a path."
"Of course you'd push it on me..."
Alaric sighed, then pointed his staff behind them and began chanting. Powerful arcane energy gathered at the tip of his staff.
"Cover your ears!" he shouted once the incantation was complete.
His companions—including Lothar—trusted the mage implicitly and instinctively covered their ears.
The next moment, an earth-shaking explosion erupted from the front of Alaric's staff.
He had cast Charged Sonic Boom.
The blast was so powerful that it created visible ripples in the air ahead of him.
Yet no one actually heard the terrifying sound directly.
It wasn't that the explosion wasn't loud—on the contrary, the moment it erupted, the sheer intensity of the shockwave caused instant tinnitus among everyone nearby, masking the true sound with the ringing in their ears.
But the orcs caught within the range of the sonic blast weren't so lucky.
Though they appeared unharmed at first, seeming perfectly fine after the blast ended, observers quickly noticed blood pouring from their ears, noses, and mouths as they collapsed one after another—lifeless.
The sonic boom had shaken them to death from the inside out.
Alaric's spell had immediately created a vacuum between them and the Alliance's main formation. Before the Horde could react, Lothar led the cavalry and swiftly retreated back into friendly lines.
The Horde pursued close behind.
"It seems temporary chaos has no effect on them," said Lothar grimly, quickly shifting tactics. "Form up! Raise spears! Shields up! Attack!"
This was the human infantry's specialty—the spear-and-shield phalanx.
The soldiers followed the order without hesitation. Though ready long ago, they had previously been scattered and unable to form a cohesive unit.
Now, they moved together, forming a solid wall bristling with spears.
The Horde crashed into it like a wave.
Many orcs ended up impaled by the dense spears.
But these bloodthirsty warriors, even with their guts pierced, would still inch forward, step by step, to launch a final attack with their last breath.
In some areas, their desperate efforts broke through parts of the wall, where defenders had either failed to hold or lost morale under the onslaught.
But most of the soldiers grit their teeth and stood firm. As some with shields fell, others immediately stepped over them to fill the gaps.
Soon, the second wave of orcs came crashing in.
It struck the shield wall again, breaking more sections, but the phalanx retaliated fiercely, inflicting significant damage on the Horde.
Turalyon and the officers worked tirelessly to reform the broken lines and erect a new shield wall behind the first.
Alaric didn't involve himself in these logistics.
Soon, the second wall was ready, standing firm behind the first.
They could build another behind this one too. As long as each wall inflicted enough casualties on the orcs, they could gradually whittle down the Horde until they were evenly matched.
This was how humans used order to overcome the chaos of the orcs.
However, these orcs weren't stupid.
After their third charge was repelled, they momentarily halted their assault. It seemed they were waiting for something.
Alaric didn't have to wait long to find out what that was.
A group of heavily cloaked figures appeared. They wore hoods that obscured their faces, revealing only eerie, inhumanly glowing eyes.
Each of them carried a strange crimson rod—more like a caster's focus than a warrior's weapon.
And yet, they charged forward on heavily armored warhorses with blazing eyes—something only knights would normally do.
As they approached, the truth became clear.
They all raised their rods, dark magic surging at the tips.
Alaric's suspicions were confirmed.
The soldiers near these terrifying knights heard a strange, unfamiliar buzzing. Moments later, they clutched their heads and collapsed, blood streaming from their ears, noses, and mouths.
It was dark magic.
There was no doubt now—these were Death Knights.